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Thread: The LaserBoy Thread

  1. #311
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    Fixed it.

    Now you have to type the dot at the end of math. to differentiate it from math2.txt.

    LaserBoy_2020_07_03

    James.
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  2. #312
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    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    Fixed it.

    Now you have to type the dot at the end of math. to differentiate it from math2.txt.

    LaserBoy_2020_07_03

    James.
    You might want to include a few simplified txt files in your bundle to make it easier for beginners to get started.
    Attached Files Attached Files

  3. #313
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    Quote Originally Posted by dchammonds View Post
    You might want to include a few simplified txt files in your bundle to make it easier for beginners to get started.
    What???

    I'm not sure how I could make it any simpler.

    BTW, your version of rhodoneas (animation) shrinks down because you set the radius of the second state to 0.1.

    Do you have any questions about how any of this works?

    Grab LB_temp.zip again or the whole thing. I just tweaked something else.

    Now if you set the file level math iterations to 0 (zero) or the math frames to 0, it does what you would expect.

    Any form with iterations or frames set to -1 will use these as default values.

    So you can turn off all of the forms except for the one you are working on.

    With that one you set the iterations and frames (if applicable) in the form itself to whatever.

    Then when you get them all right, you can set the file iterations and frames to whatever you like.
    Last edited by james; 07-03-2020 at 22:15.
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  4. #314
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    Just out of curiosity, have there ever been any other implementations of an animated harmonograph generator for laser display?

    I mean the kind described here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonograph
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  5. #315
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    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    What???

    I'm not sure how I could make it any simpler.

    BTW, your version of rhodoneas (animation) shrinks down because you set the radius of the second state to 0.1.

    Do you have any questions about how any of this works?

    Grab LB_temp.zip again or the whole thing. I just tweaked something else.

    Now if you set the file level math iterations to 0 (zero) or the math frames to 0, it does what you would expect.

    Any form with iterations or frames set to -1 will use these as default values.

    So you can turn off all of the forms except for the one you are working on.

    With that one you set the iterations and frames (if applicable) in the form itself to whatever.

    Then when you get them all right, you can set the file iterations and frames to whatever you like.
    Uhhh, I was just thinking it would be easier to deal with a little at a time vs one big file with a whole bunch of stuff at once. My bad...

  6. #316
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    just about every single abstract generator....

    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    Just out of curiosity, have there ever been any other implementations of an animated harmonograph generator for laser display?

    I mean the kind described here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonograph
    suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness.

  7. #317
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    Quote Originally Posted by swamidog View Post
    just about every single abstract generator....
    Really?

    Using the concept of a pendulum that has amplitude, frequency, phase and damping in the form

    x(t) = P1(t) + P2(t)
    y(t) = P3(t) + P4(t)

    and animating it by doing linear interpolation between two sets of pendulum specs?

    This is a bit more than a Lissajou.

    A harmonograph is a single image, drawn with pendulums that lose energy over time.

    It's not just a sine wave generator in each channel.

    You can't really do this with a live signal generating console.

    Animating a harmonograph is yet another matter.

    Plus the end result is a set of frames that can be saved as ILDA or whatever.
    Last edited by james; 07-04-2020 at 12:26.
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  8. #318
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    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    Really?

    Using the concept of a pendulum that has amplitude, frequency, phase and damping in the form

    x(t) = P1(t) + P2(t)
    y(t) = P3(t) + P4(t)

    and animating it by doing linear interpolation between two sets of pendulum specs?

    This is a bit more than a Lissajou.

    A harmonograph is a single image, drawn with pendulums that lose energy over time.

    It's not just a sine wave generator in each channel.

    You can't really do this with a live signal generating console.

    Animating a harmonograph is yet another matter.

    Plus the end result is a set of frames that can be saved as ILDA or whatever.
    Never underestimate what can be done with analog circuits- think about all those synthesizers from back in the 60's & 70's.

  9. #319
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    I'm going to take a stab at this. Maybe I'm missing something, but this seems like it's a solved problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    A harmonograph is a single image, drawn with pendulums that lose energy over time.
    Yup - agreed. But all pendulums follow sinusoidal motion with decaying amplitude. (A pendulum is pretty much the definitive example of sinusoidal motion, at least in classical mechanics.) And we already know how to re-create a sine wave using analog circuits. Admittedly the decaying amplitude could be a very long period for a pendulum, but that's not a problem for an analog circuit - it's just a design choice.

    So now you just need to model the interaction between the two pendulums - which is the phase angle between them at T=0. Again, this is a solved problem in the analog world. Or am I missing something?

    It's not just a sine wave generator in each channel.
    Why not? Pendulum motion is sinusoidal. Multiple pendulums may be able to create fantastically complex interactions, but if you break all that motion down into it's component parts you ultimately end up with lots of sine waves.

    I agree with Dean's example of analog synthesizers that could re-create all sorts of complex waveforms that mimicked orchestral instruments by simply combining lots of sine waves. I don't see this as being all that much different in practice.

    Adam

  10. #320
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    A harmonograph is a physical machine. There are variations on the idea, but the classic design is modeled in math simulations using four pendulums.

    A pendulum does indeed swing in sinusoidal motion, but it takes two sin functions to emulate the fact that it can swing in ellipses (not just one dimension).

    Pendulum position for one axis:
    P(time) = amplitude * sin(time * frequency + phase) * e^(-damping / time)

    So you have a pendulum with a scribe on the end of it (that's two pendulums).

    Two axis:
    X(t) = P1
    Y(t) = P3

    (With a damping factor of 0.0, this is a Lissajous curve.)

    Plus, you have a table suspended by all four corners with cables all coming to a single point that also swings (two more pendulums).

    scribe + table
    X(t) = P1(t) + P2(t)
    Y(t) = P3(t) + P4(t)

    You displace both the scribe and the table from their resting points and let them go. After some time you either stop them or let them come to rest on their own.

    You get a single picture.

    If you do this within the context of vectors and frame sets, you get one frame.

    What I did was create a framework so that you can define the parameters of the four pendulums for the first frame you want and the last frame you want and LB will calculate all the frames in between using linear interpolation between the two sets of parameters. So you end up with something that cannot be done with a physical machine. You get to see an animation of harmonographs that change over time.

    It's in plain text. All you have to do is follow the form and fill in your own values.

    I did this similarly for all of the classic math curves.

    I'm pretty sure there has never been anything like this done for laser display before.
    Last edited by james; 07-11-2020 at 08:11.
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